Marvel Film Universe to Expand to TV?

The news that Marvel are bringing their successful film universe to the TV screens is very exciting indeed. With the likes of a Hulk TV show we might finally get more just like when we finally got the character we had always wanted in The Avengers.

To me some characters have a more natural home on the small screen rather than the big. When you think about it, comics themselves are episodic and therefore it is not shocking to think that Marvel would expand down this route. You have to look at the benefit of using television. For example, without television, many of the younger generations may have forgotten who Superman was. But Smallville managed to keep people’s interest for ten years whilst DC tried to work out the best way to bring him back to the big screen.

Further the small screen allows us to have intricate plots and really get to know the characters. Of course this can happen on the big screen too (Nolan’s Batman films only need to be mentioned to see this) but it is so much easier and actually closer to the method we get our comics. We wait a week for a new episode; we wait a month for a new comic.

Marvel are suggesting that the show might be a high concept cop programme and have none of the characters that appear in the Marvel owned Avenger universe so don’t expect to see Iron Man, Thor or Cap running around anytime soon. But this opens the doors for so many other characters to use. The main one I am thinking is Daredevil. The Man without Fear has been without any kind of mainstream media coverage since his one jolt into the big screen in 2003. For me personally the film wasn’t terrible but it was not what we could have had from such a strong character. With the announcement of the next phase in Marvel films and there is still no Daredevil film, a television show would be the perfect place for him.

Just think about the differing ways you could play this character as a television show. We could have Law and Order Daredevil where we saw The Man without Fear catch the criminal, only for Matt Murdock to go up against him in court. This would allow the viewer to really see both sides of Matt’s personality, developing them together to create something special.

We could go down a very gritty realistic take of the character using The Wire as a template. The first season writes itself. The police are trying to bring down the mysterious crime overlord known as The Kingpin. We see Daredevil slowly put the clues together one by one and then finally it all kicks off.

The biggest thing that could come out of this is of course if Daredevil the TV show or whatever character they decide to use proves to be popular then they could also become apart of the film universe. Even a cameo would make people happy. Imagine Tony Stark coming to Daredevil and asking him to join The Avengers and he refuses. It would just add so much to this already rich universe and make fanboys happy thinking ‘Yes they all know each other.’

Of course at the same time as being excited about this news you have to feel slightly nervous. Marvel already have Thor 2, Cap 2, Iron Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant-man in the works with presumably Avengers 2 after this. Also Fox are filing The Wolverine, another X-Men film is in the works and Sony have confirmed Amazing Spider-man 2. Are another two television shows possibly over kill for the mainstream universe? Are they ready to accept even more tights at one go? Would they happily follow their Marvel themed TV show whilst they go off to see Thor 2 for example? Only time will tell but this reviewer is excited.